Submitted Written Testimony of Marc Morano to Congressional Hearing on Green New Deal – Western Caucus – Capitol Hill

Morano to Congress: “‘Global warming” is merely the latest environmental scare with the same solutions of wealth redistribution and central planning. “Global warming” is merely the latest environmental scare with the same big government solution. The “Green New Deal” has very little to do with the environment or climate.

The environmental Left has been using green scares to push for the same solutions we see today — wealth redistribution, central planning, sovereignty limiting treaties — since the overpopulation scars of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Green New Deal borrows from previous proposed “solutions”: Flashback: UN IPCC official admits UN seeks to ‘redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy’– UN: ‘This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.’

Flashback 1974 proposed “solution” to battle environmental degradation: Different Environmental Scare, Same Solution: Future Obama science czar John Holdren testified to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, “The neo-Malthusian view proposes conscious accommodation to the perceived limits to growth via population limitation and redistribution of wealth in order to prevent the ‘overshoot’ phenomenon. My own sympathies are no doubt rather clear by this point. I find myself firmly in the neo-Malthusian camp.” …

In summary, the Green New Deal has to be opposed, exposed and defeated. We must challenge the economics, ideology and science claims of this deal. I thank the Western Caucus for this opportunity and look forward to them leading the battle.”

I have been passionate about environmental issues since I began my career in 1991 as a journalist. I produced a documentary on the myths surrounding the Amazon Rainforest in 2000 and I was a fully credentialed investigative journalist with both White House and Capitol Hill press badges and I reported extensively on environmental and energy issues such as deforestation, endangered species, pollution and climate change. In 2016, I wrote and starred in the film Climate Hustle, which debuted in over 400 theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

The Green New Deal is neither “Green” or “New” and it is a “Raw Deal.” It is one Big Bowl of Crazy.

Key points:

“Global warming” is merely the latest environmental scare with the same solutions of wealth redistribution and central planning. “Global warming” is merely the latest environmental scare with the same big government solution.

The “Green New Deal” has very little to do with the environment or climate.

The Deal claims Free college or trade schools for every citizen.

The government will ensure “healthy food” to all, “safe, affordable, adequate housing,” incomes for all who are “unable or unwilling” to work.Seeks to go after meat eating and “farting cows.” Will end all traditional forms of energy in the next ten years. The Green New Deal is “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

The cost of the Green New Deal is not cheap. See: Bloomberg News: Green New Deal Could Cost $93 Trillion (or $65k per year per family) – “The so-called Green New Deal may tally between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over 10-years, concludes American Action Forum, which is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who directed the non-partisan CBO from 2003 to 2005. That includes between $8.3 trillion and $12.3 trillion to meet the plan’s call to eliminate carbon emissions from the power and transportation sectors and between $42.8 trillion and $80.6 trillion for its economic agenda including providing jobs and health care for all.”

But, as I said earlier, the “Green New Deal” is neither “green” or “new.” The environmental Left has been using green scares to push for the same solutions we see today — wealth redistribution, central planning, sovereignty limiting treaties — since the overpopulation scars of the 1960s and 1970s.

Flashback 1974 proposed “solution” to battle environmental degradation: Different Environmental Scare, Same Solution: In 1974, future Obama science czar John Holdren proposed “redistribution of wealth” to battle environmental degradation. Holdren testified to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, “The neo-Malthusian view proposes conscious accommodation to the perceived limits to growth via population limitation and redistribution of wealth in order to prevent the ‘overshoot’ phenomenon. My own sympathies are no doubt rather clear by this point. I find myself firmly in the neo-Malthusian camp.”

AOC Borrowing from the UN: Former UN Climate Chief: Meat eaters should be banished, treated ‘the same way that smokers are treated” – Christiana Figueres, the former United Nations official responsible for the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has a startling vision for restaurants of the future: Anyone who wants a steak should be banished. “How about restaurants in 10-15 years start treating carnivores the same way that smokers are treated?” Figueres suggested during a recent conference. “If they want to eat meat, they can do it outside the restaurant.”

Flashback 1974 proposed solution to overpopulation: Different Environmental Scare, Same Solution: Amherst College professor Leo Marx warned in 1974 about the “global rate of human population growth. All of this is only to say that, on ecological grounds, the case for world government is beyond argument.”

There is nothing new about the Green New Deal. “Global warming ” is merely the latest alleged environmental scare that is being substituted to push the same “solutions.” Instead of arguing the merits of the economic and political changes of the Green New Deal, they are using — in the words of Al Gore – a “torqued up” climate change scare to urge quick imposition of the policies to protect us from a climate emergency.

In my book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change, I showcase how the environmental Left has used the same rhetoric and “solutions” for the different environmental scares in the 1960s and 70s, whether it’s resource scarcity, over-population, rainforest clearing, et cetera.

They will say, we need a global solution; we need global governance; we need wealth redistribution; we need sovereignty threatening treaty, or some kind of economic limiting activity limiting. And there is no shortage of activists and bureaucrats willing to appoint themselves in charge in order to oversee the “solution.” No matter what environmental scare in the past that they tried to scare people with, it was the same solutions they’re proposing now.

In the book, I feature climate activist Naomi Klein, who’s an adviser to Pope Francis, who wrote the book, “Capitalism vs. the Climate.” Klein actually says that they would be seeking the same solutions even if there was no global warming and that essentially, capitalism is incompatible with a livable climate. She urges people, that they need to jump on this because solving global warming will solve what we’ve been trying to achieve all along.

Even the New York Times recognizes the Green New Deal as a cover for other non-environmental issues.NYT gets it! Is the Green New Deal ‘merely a cover for a wish-list of progressive policies?’ –NYT Editorial Board: “Is the Green New Deal aimed at addressing the climate crisis? Or is addressing the climate crisis merely a cover for a wish-list of progressive policies and a not-so-subtle effort to move the Democratic Party to the left? At least some candidates — Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota among them — seem to think so….Read literally, the resolution wants not only to achieve a carbon-neutral energy system but also to transform the economy itself.”

Even the Washington Post is souring on it. WASHINGTON POST RIPS GREEN NEW DEAL: ‘WE CAN’T AFFORD BAD IDEAS’ “They should not muddle this aspiration with other social policy, such as creating a federal jobs guarantee, no matter how desirable that policy might be,” the editorial board wrote. The Post also called the Green New Deal’s goal of reaching “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years “impossible” and criticized the resolution’s “promise to invest in known fiascos such as high-speed rail.”

The climate activists openly are using climate scare tactics to achieve their ends. And in order to get those ends achieved, they have to hype and scare. It’s been a very effective strategy because they’ve bullied Republican politicians, who should know better, into at least submissiveness and silence.

AOC and Sen. Markey have bungled the release of the Green New Deal. They had to pull parts of it from their website. There’s a whole dispute over what they meant on nuclear power. They haven’t even gotten this straightened out.

But what they do have straightened out: this is the litmus test for the 2020 Democratic contenders. And in a way they, have given anyone who cares about free markets, liberty, and science, a grand opening to expose anyone who signs on to this plan.

Another aspect that is remarkable is that the “Green New Deal” is how it is not sitting well with many environmental activists and other factions of the Democratic Party base.

Despite lofty rhetoric and religious like fervor, the Green New Deal cannot achieve its objectives of eliminating fossil fuels. The government cannot ban energy that works (fossil fuels) to mandate energy that is not ready for prime time (solar and wind).

In summary, the Green New Deal has to be opposed, exposed and defeated. We must challenge the economics, ideology and science claims of this deal. I thank the Western Caucus for this opportunity and look forward to them leading the battle.